It’s been two years since Instagram has introduced new filters in the app. They have been operating on the safe side; Don’t fix something which ain’t broken.

However, that just isn’t working anymore. With more photography apps offering more functions on the app store, Instagram risk being left behind with the existing filters available. On Tuesday, December 16, Instagram introduced five new filters into the app. The Instagram blog stated that the addition was inspired by the Instagram community’s creativity with their photos, “We’ve seen tremendous creativity within the community, not only in the moments they share, but in the time spent carefully composing and editing photos and videos to bring out emotions and make them beautiful.”

Five New Filters

Image Credit: blog.instagram.com

The five new filters are Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Aden and Perpetua. These dreamy-sounding filters soften the colors of the photos to create a gentle ambience.

The filters aren’t the only thing that Instagram has added though. Instagram has updated the app to allow users to arrange the filters using a “Manage” button at the end of the filter tray. This function allows the users to put their most-used filters at the top of the list for easy access. This also means little used filters (looking at you, Toaster) will be pushed to the bottom of the list. The new filter tray also allows tiny blurred previews of the images to let the users decide which color and tone they prefer.

Speaking of Other Photography Enchanters…

Image Credit: Techcrunch.com

Facebook is coming out with an auto-enhancer that automatically enhances newly uploaded photos. The uploaded picture will have a slider that allows users to choose how bright or enhanced the photo by just sliding left or right. Sliding far left leaves you with a picture that looks exactly as how you took it, and far right to the most enhanced version by Facebook.

TechCrunch reports that photos uploaded will be auto-enhanced first, and the slider is just an added option if the user is not satisfied with what Facebook has provided. Currently, the update with this feature is only available on iOS platforms, but the Android update will be coming soon.

Following Google+’s Footsteps?

Image Credit: Googleblog.blogspot.com

Facebook isn’t the first to come up with this slider enhancer, however. Google+ offered the same function October last year. The Google blog introduced improvements to Google Hangouts and Photos by automatically fixing and enhancing webcam lighting while video calling using Google Hangouts (as seen in the picture above).

Finding photos on Google+ was also simplified in the update, with Google+ being able to recognize thousands of different objects. For example, if you’re looking for a picture taken at the beach, searching for the word ‘beach’ will yield all the results with beaches while searching for ‘snow’ will yield you winter-themed pictures with snow in view. The Facebook enhancer has also been available with Google+ since last year, where the auto-enhancer automatically improves the images added to Google+ with a slider (that goes up and down instead of left and right) to adjust the images.

Image Credit: Googleblog.blogspot.com

Verdict?

These enhancers all sound pretty much magically to me. Auto-enhancer to make my pictures look better automatically? That sounds amazing, go right ahead! Because nobody wants to look like their actual selves on social media anyway, right? I can’t wait for the Facebook auto-enhancer to be available with Android phones as well.